Fatherhood

A friend was just heartbroken, "My preteen son was visibly upset after children's choir last night. When I probed, he said he didn't like his class any more and he wanted to quit. After probing even more, he said, fighting back tears, that when he went to sit down, the kids told him that he…

One of the questions we hear is, "How can I get my husband more involved in our homeschooling?" If you look around conventions (we travel to lots of them), admittedly, you do see a lot more moms than dads. It's not just anecdote; a study published by the National Home Education Research Institute in 1997…

A reader asks, "When do you step in when boys are wrestling? My 10 & 8 year old boys are constantly in some form of a challenge on the trampoline, in the yard, on the lake, in the house, etc." The way boys are always wrestling can be pretty frustrating, especially for moms. It's hard…

Our oldest son shook his head, sadly. “You never would have let me do that,” he said, watching a younger sibling. We had to admit, he had a point. When he was that age, we were new parents, full of theories but short on experience. He was Offspring 1.0, and parenting was still something of…

We've all seen them: the viral videos of parents smashing their kids' computers or sharing their stupid mistakes. Some of them are pretty funny and most of us have been tempted to do something outrageous some time or another, but is this really a good idea? Public shame has been a form of punishment throughout…

It's one of those mysteries between the sexes - what makes our choices of entertainment so different? Wives and mothers shake their heads over boys' choices of movies, videos, books, and so on. To their thinking, so much of it is just stupid. And it's not simply childishness - dads and husbands are laughing too. Why is there…

My wife, weak from the stomach flu, came out of the bathroom where she’d been hiding out—hiding by my request, I should say. “I’m so sorry,” she said, shakily. “I feel like I shouldn’t have left you out there to do that.” (more…)

It's the conference season, so we're all over the place speaking and talking to people. It's an honor to hear their stories and to be invited into their lives. It's also heartbreaking, sometimes. We think the hardest part is talking to those whose marriages are in trouble. The grief is palpable. They look broken, injured,…

This year's flu season is a doozy! Most of the families we know have had it and the rest are scared to death they are going to get it. We've found that times of sickness can bring out the worst in everyone -- OR they can be workshops of grace! How can you make it…

The message started, "[I] desperately need advice ..." ... My almost six year old always blames me or someone else for his behavior. We are very big on teaching our children accountability. It can be small and big things. Yesterday, I told him he had to put on a coat to go outside. He preceded…